BEING IN LOVE?

Who has not being in love any time? Love is a strong feeling that starts with YOU. You need to love yourself before you are able to love somebody else. A loving relationship is a friendship and something more. Lovers are friends in the sense of being soul mates, honest and trust each other. But this feeling can be confusing sometimes when a love at first sight ends up only as an infatuation.

Platonic loves are more common at earlier ages but we can fall in love at any age and under any circumstances. Platonic loves can last forever (Have you ever read ¨Amor en los tiempos del
cólera by Gabriel García Márquez?¨).

True lovers are inseparable body and soul. They are emotionally loyal to each other. They like each other´s personality or character and also are supportive at any level. They leave the other the space needed to continue their personal and independent development
and also share each other´s development.

True lovers are true friends. They are not critical of their friends and don´t talk behind their backs. Friends are kindred spirits, they have a similar way to think and look at life. And although they might have their ups and downs, there is always a connection to life, a tie to the past and a road to the future.

And then adore somebody, the utmost loving feeling for a person. It is to like, to love and to admire very much someone, what that person is, thinks, does, feels, dreams, and in fact everything.!

EMBELLISHING AND FINISHING A STORY

It was very early in the morning, before than the usual time for the retired Martin. After a whole life rousing from his sleep at 6 to commute, he had opted for relaxing in bed until the sun had risen and shone. But that day was he overcome with an uncommon and bizarre feeling. After dressing up, he took his book and began to read by the bedroom window. A nightingale was defining its musical words outside, in the beautiful romantic garden, mainly all over the great old sequoia, which Martin´s great grandfather had brought from California and had transplanted in
this ground, according to the family memories. Suddenly, a silence. So deep was the silence that Martin was affected. Standing up, he gazed at the window. Under the tree, as a part of the nature, there was a boy, not older than ten, wearing humble clothes, scanning a book, completely absorbed in his lines. Was the vision so out of the context for Martin that he rubbed his eyes. For a long time, he stared at the boy, voraciously reading his book and deeply engrossed in it, as if that corner of the garden belonged to him. Then Martin crept carefully down the stairs, opened the glass door onto the garden, and again padding softly along the garden, he approached the tree. Coming near the ground, he whispered: It looks as if it is a wonderful book, isn´t it? For the
first time, the boy, raising his head from the pages, shyly and delightfully murmured: ¨It is the book of my life¨.

- ¨The book of your life? How can a young boy have written the book of his life?¨ inquired Martin.
- I have not written it. At least I have not written it yet but I will very soon.

Martin was so intrigued by the boy´s answer and his book that only looking at Martin´s face did the boy realize that he had to give him some explanation. Then the boy began to talk. The book was a family book, a diary that every member of his family generation after generation since his great-great-grandparents had written before dying. Martin was amazed by the boy´s story. Apart from knowing his ancestors, who were they, what happened to them, their behaviors, feelings and fears, he was going to be able to understand better his present and his future. He would do the same for his children and so on till the chain would break if someone dies without descendant or till the end of time…

¨A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS¨ BY ROBERT BOLT.-

In our last class I reminded one book we read in our fifth course at the EOI which can give you a lot of historical information of the Tudor Dynasty, especially with regard Henry VIII reign,
Elisabeth´s I father. The book is called ¨A man for all seasons¨ by Robert Bolt and also the movie with the same title which was translated into Spanish as ¨Un hombre para la eternidad¨.

The book is a play and its main character is Thomas Moore, Lord Chancellor of England and catholic, who enters into political and moral conflict with King Henry VIII when he refuses to
support the King´s decision to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon. Thomas Moore is an example of eloquence and personal freedom in an authoritarian regimen such as Henry VII reign.

I really recommend it to you!

CONTINUATION OF DAVID COPPERFIELD

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.

No sooner had I grown up at the age of three years old than I began reading voraciously. Such was the interest of my reading that all my memories of childhood are related to the characters of the picaresque novels that I still remember one by one. While other children used to play outdoors, I was absorbed in my books. Never have I boasted about this innate skill which will give me so many satisfactions in the future. However, my teenager years turned out to be harder than my childhood since I had to support a large family and suffice it to say that books were forced into a background.

Looking backwards I do not regret any decision taken in my long life in spite of some events which caused me so much pain. Very soon I understood that we are a miracle of the nature and therefore we should accept one´s life come what may…

DULCE ET DECORUM EST BY WILFRED OWEN

DULCE ET DECORUM EST.
Torcidos, como viejos mendigos bajo sus hatos,
renqueando, tosiendo como brujas, maldecíamos a través del lodo,
hasta que donde alumbraban las luces de las bengalas nos dimos la vuelta
y hacia nuestra lejana posición empezamos a caminar afanosamente.
Los hombres marchaban dormidos. Muchos habían perdido sus botas
Pero abrumados avanzaban sobre zapatos de sangre. Todos cojos, todos ciegos;
Borrachos de fatiga, sordos incluso al silbido de las balas
Que los cansados cañones de calibre 5.9 disparaban detrás de nosotros.


“¡Gas, gas! ¡Rápido, muchachos!”; un éxtasis de desconcierto,
Poniéndonos los toscos cascos justo a tiempo;
Pero alguien aún estaba gritando y tropezando
Y ardía retorciéndose, como ahogándose en cal viva…
Borroso, a través de los empañados cristales de la máscara y de la tenue luz verde,
Como en un mar verde le vi ahogarse.
En todas mis pesadillas, ante mi impotente mirada,
Se desploma boqueando, agonizando, asfixiándose.

Si en algún sofocante sueño tú también puedes caminar
Tras la carreta en la que lo pusimos,
Y mirar sus blancos ojos moviéndose
En su desmayada cara, como un endemoniado.
Si pudieses escuchar a cada traqueteo
El gorgoteo de la sangre saliendo de sus destrozados pulmones,
Repugnante como el cáncer, nauseabundo como el vómito
De horrorosas, incurables llagas en lenguas inocentes,
Amigo mío, no volverías a decir con ese alto idealismo
A los ardientes jóvenes sedientos de gloria
La vieja mentira: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”.

MONA LISA WAS STOLEN !

I chose this particular event because it impressed me how an innocent action of a person, the antique dealer, can do more than all the investigations carry out by the police throughout two years in order to discover where the Mona Lisa was.

- On August, 1911, Leonardo da Vinci´s Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. But the Mona Lisa wasn´t even noticed missing until the following day when a painter went to the Salon Carré, where the Mona Lisa had been on display for 5 years, to paint a painting, and realized that on the wall where the Mona Lisa used to hang, sat only 4 iron pegs.

- The painter contacted the section head of the guards who thought that the painting must be at the photographer´s. But it wasn´t. Immediately they called the police and about 60 investigators came to the Louvre. They closed the museum for 1 week.

- The most important discovery was to find the frame of the painting in a staircase, not damaged, and that the thief had some internal knowledge of the museum. But no more clues.

- Months and years went by with no news about the Mona Lisa and then the thief made contact. An antique dealer, Alfredo Geri, innocently placed an advertisement in several Italian newspapers stating that he was a buyer of art goods. Soon Geri received a letter stating that the writer was in possession of the stolen Mona Lisa. The letter was sent from a post office in Paris and was signed only as ¨Leonardo¨.

- Geri soon contacted with the director of the Uffizi museum in Firenze and they both decided that Geri would write a letter in return saying that he would need to see the painting before he could offer a price. Geri received soon an answer to arrange a meeting which was finally in Milano. When they met, Leonardo, an Italian man, stated that he wanted a half million lire for the painting and explained that he had stolen it in order to restore to Italy what Napoleon had stolen from it. Leonardo wanted the Mona Lisa to be hung at the Uffizi and never give back to France.

- Geri agreed on the price but said that the director of the Uffizi would need to see the painting before agreeing to hang it in the museum. They arranged to meet the following day. Geri contacted the police and the Uffizi. The following day when they saw the painting they recognized the Louvre seal on the back of the painting. It was the real Mona Lisa.

- Leonardo, a former worker of the Louvre hid inside the museum on Sunday knowing that on Monday the museum would be closed. Wearing the same white smock that other workers used to wear, he left the Louvre with the Mona Lisa.

- He was arrested and the Mona Lisa was returned to France after being displayed throughout Italy.

WHAT I TAKE FROM THE BOOK, OR FROM NELSON MANDELA...

The book is basically about Mandela´s character or personality, how he was before going to prison and how much he changed behind bars. I am talking about qualities or characteristics of his personality and how he used them to achieve his core principle of a non-racial democracy and a free society. For example being courageous in those circumstances is something admirable. But we can also experience courageous in our everyday routine, with our daily little problems, and feel proud of it as long as we are doing the right thing on every moment. And that is what I try every day.

Another lesson which impressed me from him is being measured, don´t act too fast, don´t hurry; think, analyze and then act. This quality comes from being an intelligent person or even more, being wise. A wise person acts like that, considering all the different options and points of view before acting or taking a decision. I take also this one because when you apply it to your small world as it is a family, and especially thinking of the children, I think it gives all the members a sense of responsibility and of freedom.

Probably the king of the qualities is ¨see the good in others¨. If politicians and others persons with big responsibilities in the countries had thought and acted seeing the good in others, can you imagine how many wars we could have avoided! Once more this characteristic comes from being a wise person. As Atticus Finch said in the book and film ¨To kill a mockingbird¨, to understand other person we should put ourselves in his/her own shoes.

To finish with my impressions, I will mix two more qualities in only one. I share with Mandela the fact that in many situations the answer is not always yes or not, but it is sometimes both or maybe something in between. This leads you to try to reconcile different opinions, different wishes, and it helps you not to be wrong under some circumstances. But one thing is for sure, when the answer is no, I don´t postpone it. Life is too short to waste our time with excuses.